Abstract
The victors of the Cuban revolution of 1959 inherited the responsibility of directing the Cuban nation toward a more equitable political and economic system. The revolution’s victory symbolized the refutation of a malfunctioning and exploitative system that had successively failed to incorporate the masses into the capitalist structure. When the revolutionary leadership marched into Havana in January 1959, their victory symbolized the end of Cuba’s direct political and economic association with the United States.
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Notes
The Cuban transition to socialism was accompanied by the emergence of the new socialist man who negated the western conception of man whose existence in society was determined by his individualistic quest for the accumulation of private property. For an excellent analysis of the differences between the western, liberal-bourgeois conception of man and socialist-communist man see Adamantia Pollis and Peter Schwab (eds.), Towards a Human Rights Framework (New York: Praeger, 1982); another excellent analysis centers on the specific issues involved in the emergence of the new Cuban socialist man, see
Adamantia Pollis, ‘Human Rights, Third World Socialism and Cuba’, in World Development, vol. 9, 1981, nos. 9/10; see also Patricia Ruffin, ‘Socialist Development and Human Rights in Cuba’, in Pollis and Schwab, op. cit.
Richard R. Fagen, The Transformation of Political Culture in Cuba (California: Stanford University Press, 1969), p. 187.
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Report on Cuba: Findings and Recommendations of an Economic and Technical Mission (Cambridge, Massachusetts: John Hopkins University Press, 1951), p. 14.
Jorge I. Dominguez, Cuba: Order and Revolution (Cambridge, Mass: Havard University Press, 1978), p. 60.
Archibald R. M. Ritter, The Economic Development of Revolutionary Cuba: Strategy and Performance (New York: Praeger, 1974), p. 13.
Edward Boorstein, The Economic Transformation of Cuba: A First Hand Account (New York: Monthly Review, 1968), p. 12.
Arthur MacEawan, Revolution and Economic Development in Cuba (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1981), p. 18.
Joel C. Edelstein, ‘The Evolution of Cuban Development Strategy, 1959–1979’, in Heraldo Munoz (ed.), From Dependency to Development: Strategies to Overcome Underdevelopment and Inequality (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1981), p. 227.
Carmelo Mesa-Lago, The Labor Sector and Socialist Distribution in Cuba (New York: Praeger, 1968), pp. 25–6.
Jay Mallin (ed.), Che Guevara: On Revolution, A Documentary Overview (University of Miami Press, 1969), p. 131.
René Dumont, Is Cuba Socialist? (New York: Viking Press, 1970). p. 148.
Carmelo Mesa-Lago, Cuba in the 1970s: Pragmatism and Institutionalization (University of New Mexico Press, 1974).
James O’Connor, The Origins of Socialism in Cuba (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1970).
Samuel Farber, Revolution and Reaction in Cuba, 1933–1960 (Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1976), p. 194.
George Boughton, Soviet-Cuban Relations, 1956–1962 (Ph.D. dissertation, Michigan State University, 1972), p. 6.
Samuel Farber, ‘The Cuban Communists in the Early Stages of the Cuban Revolution’, in Latin American Research Review, vol. xvii, 1983, no. 1, p. 63.
Edward González, The Cuban Revolution and the Soviet Union: 1959–1960 (Ph.D. dissertation Los Angeles: University of California, 1966), p. 284.
Hugh Thomas, The Cuban Revolution (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), p. 430.
The accomplishments listed by the revolutionary government have generated some controversy. For example, the issues of women’s liberation and the eradication of racial discrimination have come under sharp attack by both Cuban exiles and some North American scholars. Usually these two groups cite the composition of Cuba’s ruling body, commenting on the underrepresentation of blacks and women. For example, Carlos Alberto Montaner maintains that as of October 1977, out of a total of 110 members of the Political Bureau, Secretariat and Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party, only ten were black, According to this author, these figures do not necessarily imply the existence of racial discrimination since racial discrimination, by its very definition, implies the exclusion of groups from participation in society solely on the basis of race. Furthermore, Montaner does not say whether ‘mulattoes’ are classified within the black group. See Carlos Alberto Montaner, Secret Report on the Cuban Revolution (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Books, 1981); for a discussion of racial attitudes and the development of western culture see
Robert E. Park, Race and Culture: Essay in the Sociology of Contemporary Man (New York: Free Press, 1950), see especially pp. 143–6.
For an excellent account of the changing role of women in Cuban society see Margaret Randall, Cuban Women Now: Interviews with Cuban Women (Toronto: Women’s Press, 1974).
Martin Kenner and James Petras (eds), Fidel Castro Speaks (New York: Grove Press, 1969), p. 39.
Michael Lowy, The Marxism of Che Guevara: Philosophy, Economics, and Revolutionary Warfare, (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971), p. 14.
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© 1990 Patricia Ruffin
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Ruffin, P. (1990). The Transition to Socialism. In: Capitalism and Socialism in Cuba. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20805-0_4
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